The last few weeks have been really good for the track. Finally, the weather and the heat have arrived – and at the same time!
It has been only 4 weeks since our last night frost. The growing season has started late and we have needed lots of growth to recover from last season's damage to fairways and bunkers.
All bunkers are now fully repaired and in play. A few bunkers still need a little loving care. There are no longer any large areas marked as “area under repair”. The major winter damage from animals at the 3rd and 9th greens is almost completely gone now.
There are many events on the course in the next few weeks, so the main focus is to keep up with the mowing routines and to squeeze in some maintenance tasks such as minor repairs, aeration, fertilizing and reseeding. The plan is also to get rid of a lot of the seed stands that characterize the fairways. They need to be cut away or cut shorter to fit into the mowing cylinders.
The last half of week 26 and the whole of week 27 will be two weeks where we will work further on the fairways with reseeding and fertilizing. There is already good growth in our fairways, but they lack density. We will work on that density throughout the season and the next few years. It will give the ball carrying capacity and slow down the invasion of weeds.
It is planned to aerate the greens and surroundings in week 27, but it is with such small spears that it will not affect the playing surface.
If I have to say one good thing that came out of last summer's long drought, it is that there are now significantly more good cultivated grasses on the fairways. They were lacking before, or perhaps more accurately, they were suppressed by more aggressive grasses and weeds. “A good drought gets rid of a lot of rubbish” is an old greenkeeper's saying – and that's true. But the stress level for the grass is high due to the early drought this year in April, so there are lots of seed stands on the fairways. They are ugly and very difficult to cut away once they are there. We are hoping to borrow a verticutter from Furesø Golf Club, which will help us move in the direction of nicer fairways.